β-fluoroalcohols can be produced by reduction of corresponding α-fluoroesters. For such reduction reactions, it is often to use stoichiometric amounts of hydride reducing agents such as lithium aluminum hydride (see Patent Document 1 and Scheme 1). However, the processes for producing β-fluoroalcohols with the use of stoichiometric amounts of hydride reducing agents are not suitable for mass-scale production due to the facts that: the reducing agents are expensive and require caution in handling; and the after-treatment of the resulting reaction products requires complicated operations and causes large amounts of wastes.

On the other hand, there have been reported processes for producing alcohols by reaction of esters with hydrogen gas (H2) in the presence of ruthenium catalysts (see Patent Documents 2 to 4 and Non-Patent Document 1).